Carter, Ella Robinson (Mrs. Briscoe)

Mrs. Briscoe Carter, beloved “parsonette” of Louisiana Methodism, was born September 19, 1867, in Plain View, Minnesota, and died on Thanksgiving Day, November 24. 1955, in Ruston, Louisiana. She was known and loved as “Miss Ella” throughout Louisiana and
for a few years in the North Texas Conference. She came to Louisiana as “Miss Ella C. Robinson” about 1890 after having taught school in Minnesota for three years. With her parents and brothers and sisters she settled in Crowley, Louisiana, was postmistress there in 1895, and that same year married a young Methodist minister, Briscoe Carter (September 19, 1895).
The children born to that union were Charles B. Carter, Ruth Elizabeth Carter, Howard R. Carter and Sam R. Carter. With Brother Carter “Miss Ella” made her parsonage home a spiritual haven, not only for her fine family but also for neighbors and congregations of Methodists, spreading her wonderful spiritual influence all over the Louisiana Methodist Conference.
Their deepest personal sorrow together was the death of their daughter, Ruth, Mrs. Alfred Soderman. This personal loss seemed to make Miss Ella even more loving and sympathetic and helpful to others in trouble and sorrow. She will be remembered on through the years, not only by children and grandchildren, but by countless hundreds of men and women who came under the influence of her loving ministrations.
Mrs. Carter was an inspiration in a special way to many young preachers and their wives who had Brother Carter as their District Superintendent or “presiding elder.” Her district parsonage home was always open to these preachers and their families in a way that made them feel she loved them and was to them the “mother parsonette” with all the best meaning of both words.
The writer of these brief and inadequate memoirs recalls with loving gratitude her words and acts of encouragement during the earlier years. On one occasion Brother Carter gave him a Greek New Testament, and Mrs. Carter encouraged him in the ministry with her radiant self-giving spirit. This spirit surely lives on in the lives of family, preachers, parsonettes and congregations, just as surely as she herself lives on in the heavenly realm which is her rightful heritage.
Her late years were filled with illness and suffering. The greatest consolation we have—we who love and reverence her—is to know that she is her own great self again without the restrictions of illness. Her spirit is the undying kind—more alive now than ever before, and continuing to lead and inspire those of us who are still on this side of the Open Door.